Investigation has been carried out in connection with reducing the amount of effluent produced in processing in recent years in the light of both the protection of the environment and cost, and a practical stage has been reached with some processing operations. With color development processes, in particular, the sludge loading, such as the BOD and COD etc., of the effluent is very high and a variety of techniques for reducing the level of pollution have been proposed in the past. For example methods of regeneration using electrodialysis have been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 37,731/79, 1,048/81, 1,049/81, 27,142/81, 33,644/81 and 149,036/81 etc., methods of regeneration using active carbon have been disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 1,571/80 and Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 14,831/83, an ion exchange membrane method has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application (OPI No. 105,820/77 and methods of regeneration using ion exchange resins have been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 132,343/78, 144,240/80 and 146,249/82 and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,475, etc. (The term "OPI" indicates an unexamined published patent application opened to public inspection.)
However, with all of these methods a high level of supervision involving analysis and control of the composition of the developer bath is required and since this necessitates the use of expensive apparatus such techniques are only suitable for use in some large scale developing laboratories.
On the other hand, a method in which the amount of effluent is reduced by lowering the rate of replenishment of the color development bath with controlling the formation of the replenisher without regeneration in the ways described above has come into operation more recently.
This method is good in that it does not require the use of expensive apparatus and does not involve control of the composition by means of analysis.
However, there are serious disadvantages with this method in that the oxidation of the preservatives which occurs as a result of the increased evaporation-concentration and the elongated residence time of the liquid in the processing tank due to the reduction of the replenishment amount, the degradation of the developing agent caused thereby interact to each other, and the processing performance is liable to marked fluctuations.
The above-mentioned problems increase as the extent of the reduction in the replenishment amount is increased, and they become very marked in small scale processing laboratories where the amount of replenishment is particularly small.
Fluctuations in processing performance of this type result in fluctuations in the gradation of the color photosensitive materials after processing and increased staining.
Consequently, small replenishment amount processing methods of this type have the advantages indicated above but they also give rise to problems with fluctuation in processing performance, and so they are subject to the same limitations as the regeneration methods in that they are suitable for use only in large scale processing laboratories where large amounts of material are being processed.
Against this background, the development of a small replenishment amount processing method which provides a stable processing performance even when the amount of material processed is small is clearly desirable in this industry.
On the other hand, it has long been known that color staining occurs as a result of the diffusion and migration of the oxidized product of the developing agent between layers of different color sensitivities in photosensitive materials. For example the use of alkyl and aryl hydroquinones as agents for the prevention of this type of color staining is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,336,327, 2,418,613, 2,419,613, 2,732,300, 3,700,453 and 3,960,570 etc., the use of the nucleus substituted hydroquinones with electron attractive groups is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,277,553 etc. and the use of the nucleus substituted hydroquinones with carbamoyl groups is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 22,237/82 etc. Furthermore, hydroquinones substituted with aliphatic acylamino groups, ureido groups, urethane groups etc. are suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 4,198,239, hydroquinones substituted with sulfonamido groups are suggested in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 202,465/84, and hydroquinones which have a sulfonic acid group and which are substituted with an acyl amino group are suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 2,701,197 as compounds encompassed by the general formula [A] which is described later.
However, the effect of these compounds on the performance after the processing of photosensitive materials in low replenishment rate processing was completely unknown in the past.